The Radetzky March

The author’s masterpiece, an epic saga of a family and an empire in decline, is “full of psychological penetration and tragic force” (The New Yorker). The Radetzky March, Joseph Roth’s classic novel of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, follows three generations of the privileged von Trotta family as Europe advances inexorably toward World War I. With a breadth and richness that draws comparison to Tolstoy, it encompasses the entire social fabric of Austro-Hungarian society. Shot through with dark humor and tragic irony, The Radetzky March is an unparalleled portrait of a civilization in decline, and as such a universal story for our times. “A masterpiece . . . The totality of Joseph Roth’s work is no less than a tragédie humaine achieved in the techniques of modern fiction. No other contemporary writer, not excepting Thomas Mann, has come close to achieving the wholeness . . . that Lukács cites as our impossible aim.” —Nadine Gordimer

History remembers Wellington's defeat of Napoleon, but has forgotten the role of Field Marshal Radetzky in the battles which led to Napoleon's abdication and first exile in 1814. As Chief of Staff to the allied coalition of 1813-14, Radetzky determined the shape of the most decisive campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars by creating the strategy that defeated the Corsican in Germany and then France. Neither Russia nor Prussia had been able to overcome Napoleon in battle and it took the brilliant diplomacy of Metternich and the military genius of Radetzky to ensure victory over the Emperor. In short, the Austrian contribution decisively tipped the balance against Napoleon - a fact which has always been overlooked by historians. It was Radetzky, too, at the age of eighty-two, who defeated the Italians in 1848 and 1849 and thus saved Europe once again from the prospect of international war and revolution. The wars Radetzky fought - and won - throughout his extensive military career were of the greatest possible significance in European history, yet today, he is almost forgotten - remembered only in the music of the Radetzky March, dedicated to him by Johann Strauss the elder. In this, the first biography of Radetzky to be published in English, Alan Sked paints a vivid picture of an exceptional, yet neglected commander of genius in a book which will be fascinating reading for enthusiasts of military and modern European history.

"[Joseph Roth] is now recognized as one of the twentieth century's great writers." --Anthony Heilbut, Los Angeles Times Book Review

The story of a Jewish family from rural Hungary and their immigration to Vienna.

Joseph Roth, best known as the author of the novel The Radetzky March and the nonfiction work The Wandering Jews, was one of the most seductive, disturbing, and enigmatic writers of the twentieth century. Born in 1894 in the Habsburg Empire in what is now Ukraine and dying in Paris in 1939, he was a perpetually displaced person, a traveler, a prophet, a compulsive liar, and a man who covered his tracks. Throughout the eastern borderlands of Europe, Dennis Marks explores the spiritual geography of a still-neglected master and uncovers the truth about Roth’s lost world.

The tumultuous life of the Austrian writer best known for "The Radetzky March" is described through letters that recall his father's and wife's mental illnesses, numerous mistresses, and travel to Paris.

The hotel that I love like a fatherland is situated in one of the great port cities of Europe, and the heavy gold Antiqua letters in which its banal name is spelled out shining across the roofs of the gently banked houses are in my eye metal flags, metal bannerets that instead of fluttering shine out their greeting. In the 1920s and 30s, Joseph Roth travelled extensively in Europe, leading a peripatetic life living in hotels and writing about the towns through which he passed. Incisive, nostalgic, curious and sharply observed - and collected together here for the first time - his pieces paint a picture of a continent racked by change yet clinging to tradition. From the 'compulsive' exercise regime of the Albanian army, the rickety industry of the new oil capital of Galicia, and 'split and scalped' houses of Tirana forced into modernity, to the individual and idiosyncratic characters that Roth encounters in his hotel stays, these tender and quietly dazzling vignettes form a series of literary postcards written from a bygone world, creeping towards world war.

A powerful collection written on the eve of the destruction of Europe by the Second World War, by the great Joseph Roth Having fled to Paris in January 1933, on the very day Hitler seized power in Germany, Joseph Roth wrote a series of articles in that 'hour before the end of the world', that he foresaw was coming and which would see the full horror of Hitler's barbarism, the Second World War and most crucially for Roth, the final irreversible destruction of a pan European consciousness. Incisive and ironic, the writing evokes Roth's bitterness, frustration and morbid despair at the coming annihilation of the free world while displaying his great nostalgia for the Hapsburg Empire into which he was born and his ingrained fear of nationalism in any form.

In the spring of 1848, revolution threatened to sweep away the old order throughout Europe. In the Austrian-occupied north of Italy, newly nurtured nationalism, further fueled by economic issues, prompted open revolt in Lombardy and Venetia. The Austrian army in Italy, commanded by 82-year-old Field Marshal Radetzky, soon saw itself under further threat from the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont, that of Naples, and the Papal States, as well as thousands of volunteers, all determined to rid Italy of the occupier. Seemingly under attack from all sides, the Austrian Army was forced to concentrate in the famous 'Quadrilateral', formed by the fortress cities of Peschiera, Mantua, Legnago, and Verona, losing deserters by the thousand, to prepare for the war to follow, a war that would continue into the following year. This volume narrates the remarkable tale of how one old general quite possibly saved an empire. With iron will, the great personal affection of his men, and some luck, Radetzky maintained his army, and finally defeated his opponents. Such was the impact of the 1848 campaign, that Johann Strauss the Elder wrote the 'Radetzky March', in the Field Marshal's honor! The comprehensive story of the revolts and the subsequent military campaigns is recounted here, taken from many and varied sources, including a considerable number of contemporary and first-hand accounts, as well official reports from all sides. Radetzky's Marches is profusely illustrated, and is accompanied by maps, charts, diagrams and extensive orders-of-battle.